Payback (36 page)

‘
But what about—’

He
took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. ‘No buts. And don’t ask me any more. For once, don’t question. Just do. OK?’ He held her again, realising they would not now get to talk again until after the attack. He also realised that given the firepower of the SAS and the private armies, there was a real chance of things going badly wrong. It made these last few minutes together precious. ‘Let’s get this thing done.’

She
looked up at him, seeing the worry in his face. ‘And this “thing” tonight isn’t just a formality. It’s dangerous, isn’t it?’ she asked.

He
avoided her eyes. ‘I’m late,’ he said, breaking off. ‘Please. Just do as I say, and we’ll all be fine.’

*

The Prime Minister’s official study is on the first floor in Downing Street, behind the famous black front door. But the architectural puzzle that is Number 10 seems to defy logic. That ‘front’ door—now made of bomb-resistant plate steel, not wood—is in reality the back door to the rabbit warren. And this Prime Minister, like others before him, had made the ground-floor Cabinet Office—the old library—his workplace.

The
Foreign Secretary and SIS chief Allan Calder met in the black and white marbled entrance hall and walked down the narrow corridor. This widens into a lobby, a holding area, with Churchill’s portrait over the fireplace and busts of William Pitt and Disraeli looking across. Calder made for the men’s room, just off the lobby, and the Foreign Secretary followed him to snatch a private few words before they were called in. Neither could cast any light on why they had been summoned, however. They returned to the lobby, minds racing at what could be so important for the PM suddenly to haul them out of other meetings.

Outside
Calder smiled at one of the veteran ‘Garden Room Girls’ as she came from of the Cabinet Room carrying some papers. ‘What’s the flap, Muriel?’ he asked. But she simply shook her head, and told them to go straight in.

They
were both immediately disconcerted on entering the Cabinet Office to find the US Ambassador there, accompanied by the new CIA London Station Chief, a man Calder had not yet got to know as well as he would have liked. Or as well as he should. But it was the diplomacy that was upsetting the Foreign Secretary. The proper channel to the PM for any ambassador was through his department. Period. Whatever this flap was about could not alter that, and he and his department had been seriously slighted. Something that would not be raised today, but which would never be forgiven or forgotten by King Charles Street.

‘
Prime Minister,’ he said, with deliberately exaggerated formality. Calder and he nodded greetings to the two Americans.

If
he noticed the frost, the PM did not show it. Something much bigger than departmental sensitivities had arisen. ‘Gentlemen. Thank you for interrupting your schedules. As you will learn, it’s not for nothing. This is a copy of an e-mail message to the US President, received at the White House a few hours ago. Take your time to read and digest it.’

They
took their copies, selected one of the sea of red leather, buttoned chairs, and sat with the other three men grouped around the end of the long, highly polished table.

The
message read:

Mr
President
,

In
a
matter
of
hours
,
a
missile
armed
with
a
biological
warhead
will
be
launched
at
a
sensitive
,
heavily
populated
target
.
There
is
nothing
you
can
now
do
to
stop
that
happening
.
Subsequent
analysis
of
the
fall
-
out
will
reveal
a
formidable
new
form
of
biological
agent
:
genetically
engineered
bacteria
which
target
only
the
genes
of
races
we
choose
to
attack
.
The
world
now
has
a
new
Domesday
threat
to
replace
the
nuclear
bomb
.
Bio
-
ethnic
cleansing
.
Whereas
you
cannot
stop
our
first
attack
,
you
can
easily
prevent
further
launches
.
Do
not
prosecute
your
new
powers
against
the
global
drugs
syndicates
.
And
,
at
their
twelve
-
month
review
,
do
not
seek
to
renew
the
anti
-
drugs
treaties
you
forced
on
the
governments
of
Mexico
,
Colombia
and
Burma
.
You
can
confirm
your
agreement
to
us
by
using
the
word
‘
coronach’
in
your
official
media
response
to
our
first
and
,
we
hope
,
final
attack
.
Our
terms
are
not
negotiable
,
and
there
will
no
further
communication
.

‘
If I may, Prime Minister?’ the CIA man said when he saw the others had finished digesting the communication. let me answer the obvious questions. Yes—we are taking it seriously. It marries with our own intelligence on Sir James Barton and the Aruba Mutual Alliance. Second, the e-mail was sent from a PC at a large commercial computer-training centre in Chicago. These machines are virtually public access. We have no leads, nor do we expect any, on who physically sent the thing.’

‘
And the threat of bio-ethnic cleansing. Is that technically feasible?’ the Foreign Secretary asked, visibly shaken.

‘
Decidedly so. We’ve looked at most things ourselves over the years, and this is fairly easy technology—for anyone with some capital and the determination to drive it through.’

The
Ambassador, a pugnacious ex-fighter pilot, cut across him. ‘The blunt fact is this. The US is as near as damn it militarily untouchable these days—in terms of weapons technology. Europe, the Middle East, Russia, China are—by our standards—all low-tech armies. Our C4 command control and communications IT is way out on its own. We have GPS cruise missiles, drones, our “stealth” radar evasion programme, F-117s and laser-guided bombs...Then there’s the JSTARS ground-surveillance system showing—regardless of weather conditions—anything deployed over an area 200 kilometres square. Our multi-dimensional warfare options include electro-magnetic pulses to screw up enemy computers and telecoms, microwave beams, as well as computer viruses and a bunch of anti-satellite weapons the Pentagon don’t even tell me about any more.’ He looked around at the discomfort he knew his words would have on his British hosts. ‘I say all this purely because it goes to the heart of a danger which, I think, this very supremacy has thrown up. Something I’ve discussed with the President more than once. It’s this. If our enemies can’t touch us with modern weapons hardware, then sure as hell they’re going to do it some other way. The
only
way they can. By tearing up the rule book on chemical and biological weapons. Dirty weapons. And
hell
...I think your James Barton is about to prove me right.’

‘
Anything more to link Barton with this?’ asked the PM. He was far from happy at a Brit, and an ex-member of his government to boot, being prime suspect in what was obviously now a major international incident.

‘
The language and cadence of the message is English. Definitely not American,’ the CIA Station Chief said. ‘Take the choice of the key word they want the President to use. Coronach. No American would use it.’

Seeing
the Foreign Secretary looking puzzled, Calder—a
Times
crossword enthusiast—came to his rescue. ‘A Scotsman like me might,’ he said. ‘It’s a Highlander’s funeral lament. Originally. But is now used to describe any kind of spontaneous public outcry of grief.’

‘
And the target for this threatened attack?’ The PM again.

‘
We think it’ll be the US mainland. Any one of our big cities. America’s one big gene bank for ethnic groups. Africans, Poles, Jews, Irish, Greeks, Hispanics, Asians...’ the Ambassador replied, wiping his face with his hand.

‘
And what do you think?’ The PM was looking at Allan Calder.

‘
I’d like to hear the Foreign Secretary’s opinion, of course,’ Calder countered, diplomatically. ‘But on the information we’ve got I’d doubt very much that it’s the USA. Delivering what they call a warhead suggests use of a ballistic missile. And that almost certainly points to a Scud. With the shambles in Russia’s armaments inventories, they’ve become the black market Kalashnikovs of the skies. We’ve frustrated the freelance sale of several systems over the last two years. But given the sophisticated defences the Ambassador described, the US is far too ambitious a target for some crude Scud attack.’

‘
Where then?’

‘
I think it will be targeted at America’s conscience, not its soil. At a small country with the most hostile and difficult borders in the world.’

‘
That was our second assumption,’ the CIA man agreed. ‘We’ve already shared all we have with the Israelis.’

‘
As have we,’ Calder replied. ‘All the information from the labs in Oeiras. They’d anyway, over his last days, belatedly recruited the unfortunate Ladislas Blacher as a sayanim. This what opened his eyes. And it’s clear that if we don’t go in hard and soon, then they will.’

‘
What about the risk of civilian casualties?’ The PM had one eye firmly on his public image. TV pictures of innocents in body bags had to be avoided at all costs.

‘L
ow. A couple of night guards at Oeiras. As for Belize, there’s the house staff at the ranch, Barton’s daughter Lydia, his wife, and the US citizen helping us. Tom Bates.’ Calder opened his hands in a gesture that spoke volumes.

‘
How’s this Bates guy doing?’ the CIA man asked.

‘
He’s nobody’s fool, and has been pretty half-hearted from the start. But he did well for us in Oeiras, getting out some vital information. And now the balloon’s really going up, we think he’ll do all we ask.’

The
group of powerful men sat uncharacteristically quietly for a while, before the PM at last spoke. ‘The two raids tonight. They’ve suddenly taken on very much greater importance. I was consulted some days ago on Lisbon’s sensitivities. But I have to say that until seeing this communication with the President, I had certainly not realised what was at stake. How confident are we?’ The way he directed the question now at his Foreign Secretary defined their uncomfortable working relationship. There was the implied criticism for not keeping him properly briefed. It was clear to everyone that if things went well, the credit would be the PM’s alone. But if there was a screw-up by the special forces, the fault would lie squarely with the SIS’s sponsoring minister.

The
Foreign Secretary stood up to leave, fully understanding the political terms of engagement in all this. ‘The Chief and I have a busy few hours ahead of us. We have one of the Service’s most experienced men running the ops centre for both missions...’

‘
Perry Mitchell. Yeah. I heard that. A real old pro,’ the CIA man chipped in, feeling for the Foreign Secretary and trying to give him a little support.